Stargate SG1 Fan Fiction ❯ The Secret Life of a Major General ❯ Chapter 10 ( Chapter 10 )

Chapter 10

Carter’s Lab, Detachment 3, Air Force Flight Test Center, Nevada Test and Training Range, NV
May 21, 2005
Afternoon

Eyes focused on her computer screen Sam groped for the ringing cell phone off to the side on her lab table. Absently picking the object up she flipped it open and brought the device to her ear greeting gruffly, “Carter.”

“Sam!”

Daniel’s loud and worrisome tone jerked her attention from the computer to the distraught archaeologist on the other end as she shifted back into her seat.

“Daniel? What is it?” her own concern increased when she heard Daniel take a fortifying breath before speaking again.

“Sam, Jack was in a serious car accident this afternoon.”

Her grip on the phone turned knuckle white as she paled dramatically. Her mind full of frantically thought denials. The general could not be… after years of ’gate travel he… on Earth!

“He’s alive Sam and is expected to make a full recovery.”

Air rushed from her lungs as her world righted itself. Taking a few breaths she demanded, “What happened Daniel?”

“They’re still investigating but everything is pointing to a deliberate attempt on Jack’s life.”

She hated the thought of it, but knew that the general had incurred enemies on Earth while working for the Stargate program, probably from services he had done for his country before the program, and even more now that he was department director.

“And there’s more Sam,” Daniel continued. “While it might have been a deliberate attempt on Jack, the real focus might have been on his children.”

Something in Sam’s brain did not quite compute that last term. Speaking slowly and distinctively, just in case Daniel was unaware of what he had just spoken she said, “Daniel, the General doesn’t have children.”

Daniel gave a bitter laugh on the other end. “I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse that you didn’t know either. From what Landry’s told me, Jack became the father of twins three months ago.”

Hearing nothing but silence from Sam, Daniel forged onwards. “Three months ago Jack became a father. The reason investigators are sure the twins are part of the reason for the accident is that neither child was at the scene and the harnesses of their child seats had been cut through.”

The incredulousness that the general was a father and no one had told her or Daniel was almost too difficult to absorb.

“It could have been an accidental severing of the harnesses?” she inquired, knowing that it was a faint hope.

“No,” came Daniel’s answer. “I asked that question myself but after hearing the lecture the investigator gave me about the impossibility of the harnesses being cut away from the seat without seriously injuring a child—and absolutely no blood on the child seats…. Everything points to the children being deliberately kidnapped.

“They may have been after Jack as well but when the steering column collapsed inward and trapping him in the vehicle… they would have needed the Jaws of Life like the paramedics did to get him from the wreckage.”

Hearing that invoked a sharp cry from Sam before she furiously demanded, “You said he would live! What haven’t you told me about his injuries?”

Steadily Daniel repeated what Landry had told him. Finished passing that information on, he promised that he would send an email containing anything new that he learned as well as phoning back when Teal’c contacted SGC from Dakara.

Conversation concluded, Sam closed the cell phone and wondered how fast she could get emergency personal leave and on a flight to DC. Squaring her shoulders, she rose from her seat and made her way to Colonel Masiello office, the commander of DET 3—the true ‘Area 51’—since the sixth year of the Stargate program.

Leaving the now awake and fussy toddlers to Devon and Weaver, Athena strode towards the business jet waiting to transport the three Trust members to Nevada. Thankfully the technically hour and a half drive from Arlington to the private Richardson Airfield in Stirling had been completed in forty minutes and not the usual fifty that occurred during high traffic times.

Their destination was the private Calvada Meadows Airport in Pahrump where they would meet a car that would ferry them the one hour and twenty some minutes to Lord Oceanus who was waiting for them in his Luxor suite. She had already phoned to confirm that she had secured the Mayer twins and after checking in on O’Neill’s situation a final time would inform her line-father that they were airborne and report O’Neill’s status.

Boarding and settling into her seat, once the pilot had the craft airborne she logged onto the Trust network and marked O’Neill’s progress. He was in an intensive care unit in a drugged coma, which was fine with her and she wondered if she could arrange to keep him in a coma. As lovely as that thought was, it would be more agonising when he woke up in the hospital to discover that the twins had been kidnapped and the humans were still running around like the headless creatures they were trying to discover who had done it.

Well, let them scurry about. There was absolutely nothing that connected Farrow-Marshall Aeronautics with O’Neill. There was the unfortunate investigation preformed by SGC that connected the company with the Stargate project but as Carter had not detected her during the interview, it was highly unlikely that any suspicion would be directed towards her. Especially in regards to kidnapping the Mayer twins.

Placing her call to Oceanus, she informed him of their arrival time and gave her update regarding O’Neill.

Oceanus was both pleased and displeased with O’Neill’s condition. Pleased that the man had been injured and would have to heal, giving them more time to implement their plan, but displeased that it meant the man did not know about the fate of the Mayer twins. Physical and mental anguish was the preferred state for humans such as O’Neill.

The call concluded Athena cast an irritated look at the two men accompanying her and the screeching children they were still wrestling with. There would be a nanny waiting for them upon their arrival in Pahrump, arranged via the Trust network, but that did not provide relief for her eardrums at the moment.

“I need silence!” Athena snapped. “Lock them into one of the far rooms.”

Obediently Devon and Weaver did as instructed, securing the toddlers in a room away from Athena’s seat. The sound of the children’s scream was muffled and they expected them to fall into an exhausted sleep shortly. Returning to her side, the two men set up their own computers and set about doing their regular duties as was Athena. It was refreshing to be doing Trust business, but that did not mean they could take time off from managing Farrow-Marshall.